Views on scientific workflows

Abstract

Workflows are becoming more and more important in e-Science due to the support they provide to scientists in computer simulations, experiments and calculations. Our experiences with workflows in this field and the literature show that scientific workflows consist of a large number of related information. This information is difficult to deal with in a single perspective and has changing importance to scientists in the different workflow lifecycle phases. In this paper we apply viewing techniques known from business process management to (service-based) scientific workflows to address these issues. We describe seven of the most relevant views and point out realization challenges. We argue that the selected views facilitate the handling of workflows to scientists and add further value to scientific workflow systems. An implementation of a subset of the views based on Web services and BPEL shows the feasibility of the approach. The presented work has the goal to increase additionally the acceptance of the workflow technology in e-Science. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.